Books, Arts & Manners: Dressing Up, Looking Down

I RECENTLY attended a London party in honor of a political writer, for which the invitation stipulated black tie. Having put on my finest, I arrived at my host’s rather grand house to be met by as many as twenty young men wearing sweaters and jeans. At the start, I felt embarrassed for the few among them I knew, but after a while it dawned on me: I was the one out of place. England, alas, has taken a page out of Hollywood and David Geffen. No one with serious political or artistic aspirations believes that wearing a necktie is the proper thing to do.

But before I go on, a word or two about slobbism. They say that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, but as in everything the “cultural elite” of the Left tells us, nothing could be further from the truth. The rich are getting poorer, as far as I’m concerned, because they try to look so poor. Everywhere one looks, there are people with horrible haircuts who think wearing sweat suits is okay at whatever age and size they happen to be.

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I RECENTLY attended a London party in honor of a political writer, for which the invitation stipulated black tie. Having put on my finest, I arrived at my host’s rather grand house to be met by as many as twenty young men wearing sweaters and jeans. At the start, I felt embarrassed for the few among them I knew, but after a while it dawned on me: I was the one out of place. England, alas, has taken a page out of Hollywood and David Geffen. No one with serious political or artistic aspirations believes that wearing a necktie is the proper thing to do.

But before I go on, a word or two about slobbism. They say that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, but as in everything the “cultural elite” of the Left tells us, nothing could be further from the truth. The rich are getting poorer, as far as I’m concerned, because they try to look so poor. Everywhere one looks, there are people with horrible haircuts who think wearing sweat suits is okay at whatever age and size they happen to be.